The present invention relates to line printers for printing raised-dot language known as the Braille characters, and more particularly the invention relates to a printing mechanism for line printers of the type in which a paper is pressed against a plurality of printing pins projected in accordance with the character patterns to be printed so as to produce the desired raised dots.
Recently, the use of a computer system has been introduced as a means of translating into the Braille characters which are known as a means of communication for the blind, and consequently it is now possible to make books written in Braille characters available for the blind by automatically converting the contents of books into Braille character code, recording them on cassette tapes or the like and keeping these tapes in libraries for blind, educational institutions, etc., in various districts for reproduction in case of need. The similar situation is prevalent in all the countries where any of the raised-dot languages for the blind including the Braille characters is used.
To reproduce the Braille character code which is recorded on a cassette tape, it is desirable to use a line printer for increasing the printing speed. However, the development of line printers intended for exclusive use on the Braille characters has been slow, and consequently the line printer used in the ordinary computer system has been modified and used for printing raised dots on a paper. As a result, the line printer is expensive, and moreover the use of the ordinary line printer results in a complicated mechanism. In particular, the use of hammers for producing embossed dots requires a considerably large drive source and this also causes considerable noise.